There are many things which we can afford to forget which it is yet well to learn.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
I have always sought to guide the future-but it is very lonely sometimes trying to play God.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the challenges and isolation experienced when attempting to influence the future significantly.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. expresses the loneliness that can accompany the aspiration to shape the future or play a significant role in it, likening such ambition to a divine responsibility. The metaphor of 'playing God' suggests that those who desire to guide or control the course of events may encounter solitude, as their aspirations and the burden of responsibility can separate them from others.
Themes
LonelinessFutureGuidanceResponsibilityInfluence
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech emphasizing the importance of leadership and foresight.
More from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
All quotes →On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
If you don't know what you want, you will probably never get it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
Why should you row a boat race? Why endure the long months of pain in preparation for a fierce half hour that will leave you all but dead? Does anyone ask the question? Is there anyone who would not go through all the costs, and more, for the moment when anguish breaks into triumph or even for the glory of having nobly lost? Is life less than a boat race? If a man will give the blood in his body to win the one, will he spend all the might of his soul to prevail in the other?
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts, but learning how to make facts live.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
Beware how you take away hope from another human being.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
Similar quotes
Goodness was more difficult than evil. Evil men knew that more than good men. That's why they became evil. That's why it stuck with them. Evil was for those who could never reach the truth. It was a mask for stupidity and lack of love. Even if people laughed at the notion of goodness, if they found it sentimental, or nostalgic, it didn't matter -- it was none of those things, he said, and it had to be fought for.
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A liberal society stands on the proposition that we should all take seriously the idea that we might be wrong. This means we must place no one, including ourselves, beyond the reach of criticism; it means that we must allow people to err, even where the error offends and upsets, as it often will.
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I'm not sure if I could tell the difference—between just staring into space and thinking. We're usually thinking all the time, aren't we? Not that we live in order to think, but the opposite isn't true either—that we think in order to live. I believe, contrary to Descartes, that we sometimes think in order not to be. Staring into space might unintentionally have the opposite effect.
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In all of my years of service to my Lord, I have discovered a truth that has never failed and has never been compromised. That truth is that it is beyond the realm of possibilities that one has the ability to out-give God. Even if I give the whole of my worth to Him, He will find a way to give back to me much more than I gave.
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Books say: she did this because. Life says: she did this. Books are where things are explained to you, life where things aren't.
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To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.
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